Completely caught off-guard, we were told this morning that Dave is no longer being considered for the Pastor of Youth Ministries at the Kansas church. After being told again & again that the job was ours and we just had to "wait for the church vote" (which was supposedly a shoo-in), the church voted yesterday. (You may recall we have been doing NOTHING but waiting for this vote to occur. We don't have a home and we've been living at various peoples' homes for the past 3 weeks, all under the impression that our job search was at its end). Here is the kicker: Dave got 74% of the congregation's positive vote (this along with the unanimous recommendations to hire him from the Search Committee, the Elder Board, & the Church Board). Common sense tells most people that this means Dave gets the job, no?
Apparently not. The remaining 26% of the church congregation was contacted to discuss their concerns further, and Dave was told that these were mostly youth parents who were concerned that Dave was not "flashy or fun" enough. Those of you who know Dave know this to be absurd - true, he's not outwardly flashy or loud and he doesn't walk into a room (or a job interview for that matter) screaming, "Look at me, the wild and crazy youth guy! Let's all go jump off a bridge!" But the man is humble, he loves God, and he loves teenagers more than anything in the world. All his heart desires is to serve them and love on them and lead them to a life of following Jesus. Call us crazy but that seems like a pretty good choice for a youth pastor of any church. Obviously, if the parents of the youth desire a man who's all glitz and no substance, this church is not the right place for us in the long run.
Evidently, the previous youth pastor there was a flashy guy, and the parents want more of the same (or that guy back). We were told on our visit there that the previous youth guy never really challenged the kids in their faith and made it more about fun & games. We (and the church's pastor) were confident that Dave would be a great follow-up to this situation, not without its challenges, of course.
The church vote ultimately meant nothing (the majority of the influence was in the 26% who voted no), and our waiting for the past month was a fruitless waste. Dave hasn't even done any other applying/interviewing for any other position since our visit to Kansas. That is how convinced we were that this was our next step.
I'd love to now spout off cliches about God's ability to provide for us and His presence in hard times, but we are really discouraged and at this moment, those promises seem so empty. We've been stepping out in major faith for nearly 6 months and we're in the same place now that we were in back in August, except that now we don't have a house to live in. We are devastated. It's hard not to ask ourselves, "Are we not faithful enough?" "What are we doing/did we do wrong?" "Do we need to be skinnier people to be attractive to teenagers and their families?" "Are we uncool people?" "Is every church out there this shallow?" and "What the heck are we going to do now?"
We would appreciate your prayers in this time. We'll be living in a friend's empty house on Christmas day. Our mail is being forwarded to a friend's, so you can still send us stuff to our old address and we'll get it eventually.
Peace of Christ to you.
